Supreme Court issues contempt notice to ML Sharma and AoR for attributing motives to Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a contempt notice against Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma and Advocate-on-Record (AoR) Deepak Goel for allegedly attributing motives to Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice Ravi Malimath, whose judgment they were challenging. [Tikamgarh Municipal Council v. Matsya Udyog Sahkari Samiti and Ors].Sharma apologized immediately, saying,"Please consider my apology my lords, it was a legal error. I have 35 years of practice, before even special courts," he said.A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S Oka, however, declined to entertain the immediate apology tendered by Sharma and also took exception to Goel signing off the plea."You are harming the litigant by making such averments," Justice Oka said."You cannot just attribute motives by quoting some observation. His observations are his personal view. We may not agree with the order, but you cannot do this. Can an AoR just sign off like this?" Justice Kaul added..The Court's order accordingly notes, "We are greatly troubled by the averments contained on page 8 because of the ground set out therein and more specifically ground (b). The issue is not whether the impugned order is right or wrong but the endeavor to scandalize the Division Bench of the High Court by making averments that it unduly favoured the original petitioner society and attributing judicial misconduct in recording proceedings. This is a petition filed by the Municipal Council of Tikamgarh. We have a little doubt that the endeavor is to scandalize the Court.".Contempt notice was also issued to one Vijay Singh, an assistant accountant in the Municipal Council of Tikamgarh for signing the affidavit.The matter was listed for December 5, with all three contemnors directed to remain present in Court.By way of background, the respondent-society had a license from the Council to operate a pond and the associated fishing rights that come with it. The same was up for renewal, and subsequently it was alleged that the respondents had not re-applied for the license.The respondents had claimed that the advertisement for the same was published only in two local papers, but its first plea before the High Court was dismissed. Later, a new bench allowed its appeal but asked all bidders for the pond rights to apply again after a fresh notification and advertisement is issued. This led to the present appeal. The specific portion of the plea the top court judges objected to was:"Without having cause of action, challenge, pleading and prayer in Writ hon'ble high court issued new relief other than prayed in writ and issued direction for fresh advertisement facilitating society to participate for lease allotment of fishery Ponds. In writ Cause of actions, pleading and prayer were confined for renewal of current lease. It's a serious judicial misconduct." [sic].[Read order]